#i think merrill could have brought ghilis around to blood magic but obviously she wasnt there

[vigilskeep]

I'd love to hear more about your mahariel, if you would like?

ah of course!! but Be Warned. you have selected my tragedygirl. cannot emphasise this enough. this story is not going to start or end the way you would like

ghilis mahariel, proud dalish warrior, confident in her beliefs, forthright, somewhat blunt, somewhat traditional in her way of thinking. she sees a very set path ahead for her life, protecting her clan with honour. and: she’s loved and been loved by merrill longer than she can remember. she’s going to marry her. this is so decided and obvious it barely has to be spoken aloud. in other cases the keeper might be slightly cautious about the pairing—magical bloodlines being as in need of preservation as they are—but they are so well-matched. the next keeper and the past keeper’s daughter. the brilliance of one and the strength of the other. they are the future of the clan, and who looking at them can think that future is anything but bright?

that future, of course, is stolen. the set path under her feet vanishes. her best friend dies, the grey wardens take her away, and she will never be able to fulfil those promises to merrill. she’s brought into this ugly never-ending fight against the blight. the joining is more horrifying to ghilis than it is to any of my other wardens. why? because it’s the blight that took her life away already, yes, because she’s losing all hope of ever going home, yes, but also because it’s blood. they dance around the word, but it’s blood magic. da2 shows just how much the warriors of clan sabrae were taught to revile that by marethari and what cost they were willing to pay to avoid it. (merrill had not turned to it yet, as i understand, and ghilis would have no reason to associate it with her.) she joins the wardens, because her keeper commanded it of her, but she swears to herself that she will never make such a sacrifice again

but it’s not all bad during dao! there is joy. there’s laughter, sometimes. she builds relationships; she’s best of friends with alistair, respects sten and wynne, connects with zevran. she learns more about the world than she ever knew existed. and then there’s leliana. beautiful, confusing, terrifying leliana, with her shemlen faith and her liar’s ways and her swift bow and her red-gold hair and her lovely voice telling tales long into the night. of course it feels like a betrayal to love again so soon, for it to be a human and a chantry devotee at that, but there’s so little light in all this darkness and eventually she can’t resist this one glint of happiness, even if it could never last

and then i suppose we get to how it all ends. morrigan’s dark ritual, it’s blood magic, you see, and ghilis doesn’t trust her, and besides, she made that vow never to compromise herself like this again. she can’t make alistair do it. and she couldn’t let it be alistair who dies, not after losing one dear best friend to the blight already. so she sacrifices herself to slay the archdemon. she’s always been designed, after all, to walk the path that was laid out for her. now she finally gets to do it. so that’s how we get to the irony of merrill turning to blood magic after the loss of the person who died rather than partake in it, who was in fact the first to die because of marethari’s fears. and that’s how we get to the jaded leliana of the inquisition, knowing the best thing she ever had did not belong to the maker at all, and even then he saw fit to take her away

... sorry?